Given one conception of biological individuality (evolutionary, physiological, etc.), can a holobiont – that is the host + its symbiotic (mutualistic, commensalist and parasitic) microbiome – be simultaneously a biological individual and an ecological community? Herein, we support this possibility by arguing that the notion of biological individuality is part‐dependent. In our account, the individuality of a biological ensemble should not only be determined by the conception of biological individuality in use, but also by the biological characteristics of the part (...) of the ensemble under investigation. In the specific case of holobionts, evaluations of their individuality should be made either host‐relative or microbe‐relative. We support the claim that biological individuality is part‐dependent by drawing upon recent empirical evidence regarding the physiology of hosts and microbes, and the recent characterization of the ‘demibiont’. Our account shows that contemporary disagreements about the individuality of the holobiont derive from an incorrect understanding of the ontology of biological individuality. We show that collaboration between philosophers and biologists can be very fruitful in attempts to solve some contemporary biological debates. (shrink)

An understanding of the factors behind the evolution of multicellularity is one of today’s frontiers in evolutionary biology. This is because multicellular organisms are made of one subset of cells with the capacity to transmit genes to the next generation and another subset responsible for maintaining the functionality of the organism, but incapable of transmitting genes to the next generation. The question arises: why do somatic cells sacrifice their lives for the sake of germline cells? How is germ/soma separation maintained? (...) One conventional answer refers to inclusive fitness theory, according to which somatic cells sacrifice themselves altruistically, because in so doing they enhance the transmission of their genes by virtue of their genetic relatedness to germline cells. In the present article we will argue that this explanation ignores the key role of policing mechanisms in maintaining the germ/soma divide. Based on the pervasiveness of the latter, we argue that the role of altruistic mechanisms in the evolution of multicellularity is limited and that our understanding of this evolution must be enriched through the consideration of coercion mechanisms. (shrink)

The comparative method grants epistemic access to the biological past. Comparing lineages provides empirical traction on both hypotheses about particular lineages and models of trait evolution. Understanding this evidential role is important. Although philosophers have recently turned their attention to relations of descent, little work exists exploring the status of evidence from convergences. I argue that, where they exist, convergences play a central role in the confirmation of adaptive hypotheses. I focus on ‘analogous inferences’, show how such inferences ought to (...) be analysed and suggest three methods for strengthening their evidential weight. 1 Introduction2 Analogous Inferences2.1 Adaptive explanations and analogies2.2 Analogous inferences2.3 Scope, grain, and specificity3 Parallel Modelling, Integrated Explanations, and Convergent Modelling3.1 Parallel modelling3.2 Integrated explanations3.1 Convergent modelling4 Conclusion. (shrink)

In this article I examine the contemporary discourses and debates that surround the sociology of spirituality, with especial attention to the term “spirituality”. To counter the widespread belief that this term lacks clarity and utility, I suggest reconsidering Max Weber’s use of the term “spirit,” as it refers to a recognisable ethic that results in specific behaviour, while still retaining its religious and spiritual connotations. Through focusing on two influential English figures in the post 9/11 God debate in the West, (...) Richard Dawkins and Karen Armstrong, I provide a brief case study of how Weber’s understanding of “spirit” serves great utility in illuminating what drives the ideas, identity-making and behaviour of contemporary atheists and those defending religion. By utilising Weber’s “spirit,” rather than the term spirituality, I demonstrate that this enables us to dig deep into the social context and backgrounds of these two individuals, and to avoid taking their statements at face value – a common criticism of sociology of spirituality studies. I argue that the use of “spirit,” in terms of a recognisable ethic that results in specific behaviour, would benefit the sociology of spirituality. This is because it grounds the God debaters’ ideas and beliefs in a recognisable human experience that eludes reductive distinctions and disembodied abstractions. (shrink)

Combining sociological evidence with the analytical tools of philosophy, Ethics, Money and Sport articulates and explores the main concerns about the way money has changed our experience of sports. Clearly written and illustrated by examples from major sports around the world, Ethics, Money and Sport enables students, researchers and policymakers - as well as anyone with an interest in the future of sport - to engage with this crucial debate.

Debate about the epistemic prowess of historical science has focused on local underdetermination problems generated by a lack of historical data; the prevalence of information loss over geological time, and the capacities of scientists to mitigate it. Drawing on Leonelli’s recent distinction between ‘phenomena-time’ and ‘data-time’ I argue that factors like data generation, curation and management significantly complexifies and undermines this: underdetermination is a bad way of framing the challenges historical scientists face. In doing so, I identify circumstances of epistemic (...) scarcity where underdetermination problems are particularly salient, and discuss cases where legacy data—data generated using differing technologies and systems of practice—are drawn upon to overcome underdetermination. This suggests that one source of overcoming underdetermination is our knowledge of science’s past. Further, data-time makes agnostic positions about the epistemic fortunes of scientists working under epistemic scarcity more plausible. But agnosticism seems to leave philosophers without much normative grip. So, I sketch an alternative approach: focusing on the strategies scientists adopt to maximize their epistemic power in light of the resources available to them. (shrink)

Does the existence of body representations undermine the explanatory role of the body? Or do certain types of representation depend so closely upon the body that their involvement in a cognitive task implicates the body itself? In the introduction of this special issue we explore lines of tension and complement that might hold between the notions of embodiment and body representations, which remain too often neglected or obscure. To do so, we distinguish two conceptions of embodiment that either put weight (...) on the explanatory role of the body itself or body representations. We further analyse how and to what extent body representations can be said to be embodied. Finally, we give an overview of the full volume articulated around foundational issues (How should we define the notion of embodiment? To what extent and in what sense is embodiment compatible with representationalism? To what extent and in what sense are sensorimotor approaches similar to behaviourism?) and their applications in several cognitive domains (perception, concepts, selfhood, social cognition). (shrink)

The paper proposes the first unified account of deictic/sentence-external and sentence-internal readings of singular different . The empirical motivation for such an account is provided by a cross-linguistic survey and an analysis of the differences in distribution and interpretation between singular different , plural different and same (singular or plural) in English. The main proposal is that distributive quantification temporarily makes available two discourse referents within its nuclear scope, the values of which are required by sentence-internal uses of singular different (...) to be distinct, much as its deictic uses require the values of two discourse referents to be distinct. Thus, we take sentence-internal readings to be a form of ‘association with distributivity’ that is similar to association with focus. The contrast between singular different , plural different and same is explained in terms of several kinds of quantificational distributors that license their internal readings. The analysis is executed in a stack-based dynamic system couched in type logic, so we get compositionality in the usual Montagovian way. Quantificational subordination and dependent indefinites in various languages provide additional motivation for the account. Investigating the connections between items with sentence-internal readings and the quantificational licensors of these readings opens up a larger project of formally investigating (i) the typology of quantificational distributors and distributivity-dependent items and (ii) the fine-grained contexts of evaluation needed to capture this typological variation. (shrink)

Thought experiments have played a pivotal role in many debates within ethics—and in particular within applied ethics—over the past 30 years. Nonetheless, despite their having become a commonly used philosophical tool, there is something odd about the extensive reliance upon thought experiments in areas of philosophy, such as applied ethics, that are so obviously oriented towards practical life. Herein I provide a moderate defence of their use in applied philosophy against those three objections. I do not defend all possible uses (...) of thought experiments but suggest that we should distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate uses. Their legitimate uses are determined not so much by the modal content of any actual thought experiment itself, but by the extent to which the argument in which it is nested follows basic tenets of informal logic and respects the fundamental contingency of applied ethical problems. In pursuing these ideas, I do not so much provide a set of criteria for their legitimate use, but more modestly present two significant ways in which their use can go awry. (shrink)

Researchers in the life sciences often make uniqueness attributions; about branching events generating new species, the developmental processes generating novel traits and the distinctive cultural selection pressures faced by hominins. Yet since uniqueness implies non-recurrence, such attributions come freighted with epistemic consequences. Drawing on the work of Aviezer Tucker, we show that a common reaction to uniqueness attributions is pessimism: both about the strength of candidate explanations as well as the ability to even generate such explanations. Looking at two case (...) studies—elephant trunks and human teaching—we develop a more optimistic account. As we argue, uniqueness attributions are revisable claims about the availability of several different kinds of comparators. Yet even as researchers investigate the availability of such comparators, they are able to mobilize complex sets of empirical and theoretical tools. Rather than hindering scientific investigation, then, we argue that uniqueness attributions often spur the generation of a range of epistemic goods. (shrink)

Much recent cognitive neuroscientific work on body knowledge is representationalist: “body schema” and “body images”, for example, are cerebral representations of the body (de Vignemont 2009). A framework assumption is that representation of the body plays an important role in cognition. The question is whether this representationalist assumption is compatible with the variety of broadly situated or embodied approaches recently popular in the cognitive neurosciences: approaches in which cognition is taken to have a ‘direct’ relation to the body and to (...) the environment. A “direct” relation is one where the boundaries between the body and the head, or between the environment and the animal are not theoretically important in the understanding of cognition. These boundaries do not play a theoretically privileged role in cognitive explanations of behavior. But representationalism appears to put a representational veil between the locus of cognition and that which is represented, making cognitive relations to the body and to the environment be indirect, with a high associated computational load. For this reason, direct approaches have tried to minimize the use of internal representations (Suchman 1987; Barwise 1987; Agre and Chapman 1987; Brooks 1992; Thelen and Smith 1994; van Gelder 1995; Port and van Gelder 1995; Clark 1997, 1999; Rupert 2009, p. 180). Does a cognitive neuroscience committed to direct relations rule out a representationalist approach to body knowledge? Or is direct representationalism possible? (shrink)

Corruption is a more important idea for Hobbes than has been recognized: a state of nature can result from corruption of the people, corruption of counsellors and corruption of legal processes. Hobbes often uses a 'cognitive' conception of corruption — the distortion of mental processes, by faulty reasoning or improper attitudes. Corruption means that citizens think they benefit from sedition, counsellors advise with self-interested rhetoric rather than impartial logic, witnesses lie and judges settle cases by bribes or pity. Although corruption (...) is often thought to involve the pursuit of private gain, Hobbes only talks about corruption in terms of misjudged private gain, where an individual is motivated by his apparent, short-tem self-interest, rather than his real, long- term self-interest. That is why corruption can lead to a state of nature. (shrink)

"G. E. M. Anscombe is one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. Known primarily for influencing research in action theory and moral philosophy, her work also has relevance in the study of metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, and politics. The Anscombian Mind provides a comprehensive survey of Anscombe's thought, not only placing it in its historical context but also exploring its enduring significance in contemporary debates. Divided into three clear parts, 24 chapters (...) by an international team of contributors address the following themes: ancient philosophy metaphysics mind and language Wittgenstein action and ethics politics religion and faith. Also included is Anscombe's 1948 Mary Somerville Fellowship Report, making this fascinating document easily available to readers for the first time. The Anscombian Mind is an indispensable resource for anyone studying and researching Anscombe herself, action theory, ethics, moral philosophy, Wittgenstein, and twentieth-century philosophy"--. (shrink)

Consideration of evidence and data in historical science is dominated by textual metaphor: we reconstruct the past on the basis of various incomplete records. I suggest that although textual metaphors are often apt, they also lead philosophers and scientists to think about historical evidence in particular ways, and that other perspectives might be fruitful. Towards this, I explore the notion of natural historical evidence being thought of as ‘ruins’. This has several potential benefits. First, the architectural aspect of the metaphor (...) emphasizes the contingency of historical subjects and the coherency of design-based reconstruction. Second, historical data, like ruins, are co-constructed, involving intimate interaction with materials. (shrink)

The interreligious dialogue has a very important place in all the meeting agendas from all over the world, regardless the topic addressed. Having a concrete dynamic, this kind of theological problematic follows the general spiritual movement of communities and their unresolved necessities. Although the interreligious dialogue has an old history, it developed today on the basis of actual issues of violence and disagreements between peoples. Therefore, because religion has an essential place in the life of human communities from all over (...) the world, the dialogue with people of other faiths and ideologies must be necessarily promoted. In this context, the Orthodox Church representatives participated at many meetings in the purpose to promote and sustain the interreligious dialogue, bringing in actuality their bi-millenaries theological experience, based on the Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition. From the orthodox point of view, the liberty is the greatest gift which God has given to man and also a free world cannot exist without love between people. This love has its fundament and purpose in the Holy Trinity. (shrink)

Anscombe raises a difficulty for the very idea of quotation. Davidson seeks to dissolve this difficulty. But the difficulty is real. And its lesson is that, in quotation, language takes itself as its topic in a non-objectifying manner. The idea of a non-objectifying manner of being a topic is crucial, not merely for understanding quotation, but for understanding the distinctive form of sensory consciousness in which language is perceived.

Beginning with Zagzebski (The Philosophical Quarterly 44:65–73, 1994), some philosophers have argued that there can be no solution to the Gettier counterexamples within the framework of a fallibilist theory of knowledge. If true, this would be devastating, since it is believed on good grounds that infallibilism leads to scepticism. But I argue here that these purported proofs are mistaken and that the truthmaker solution to the Gettier problems is both cogent and fallibilist in nature. To show this I develop the (...) notion of evidence of a state of affairs, a crucial concept in the truthmaker theory. I also argue that a common principle of the transmission of evidence through entailment is false, and the cause of much of the trouble. (shrink)

There is a long history and growing evidence base that the use of drugs, such as anabolic-androgenic steroids, to enhance human performance is common amongst armed forces, including in Australia. We should not be surprised that this might have occurred for it has long been predicted by observers. It is a commonplace of many recent discussion of the future of warfare and future military technology to proclaim the imminent arrival of Super Soldiers, whose capacities are modified via drugs, digital technology (...) and genetic engineering, in ways that increase their performance exponentially. This is what some observers have referred to as the “Gladiator Model” wherein the aim is to create soldiers able to perform feats of which ordinary citizens are not capable. One key aspect of this “gladiator project” is the use of illicit drugs to enhance performance. Could we use drugs, such as steroids or amphetamines, to enhance performance? Should we use such drugs? In this paper we explore the ethics of creating Super Soldiers, and raise issues of consent, coercion and the extent to which such use is permitted or condemned by just war theory. We conclude that much will depend on the extent to which such use is harmful to the soldiers themselves and this is still an open question. (shrink)

The past can be a stubborn subject: it is complex, heterogeneous and opaque. To understand it, one must decide which aspects of the past to emphasise and which to minimise. Enter frameworks. Frameworks foreground certain aspects of the historical record while backgrounding others. As such, they are both necessary for, and conducive to, good history as well as good philosophy. We examine the role of frameworks in the history and philosophy of science and argue that they are necessary for both (...) forms of enquiry. We then suggest that the right attitude towards frameworks is pluralism rather than monism: there is no single correct framework to be applied to a given scientific episode. Rather, a multitude of different frameworks are more or less appropriate given various contexts and aims. From this perspective, good frameworks generate and further, rather than frustrate, historical and philosophical enquiry. Our view sheds light on historical disagreement, and on the relationship between philosophy and history of science. (shrink)

Science entails history writing: scientists are continuously engaged in creating “imagined pasts” for their own specialisms, both on the small scale of the ubiquitous literature review and on a much broader scale. This aspect of science has been considered in very different ways in decades-old, yet largely neglected, contributions by Thomas S. Kuhn, Augustine Brannigan, and Simon Schaffer. Inspired by these pieces and by the missing dialogue between them, this essay argues that their concealment is itself an instance, on the (...) broadest possible scale, of the power of “imagined pasts”—in this case the imagined continuity, inscribed in the very name of our discipline, between Isaac Newton and ourselves. (shrink)

I sketch a line of thought about consciousness and physics that gives some motivation for the hypothesis that conscious observers deviate—perhaps only very subtly and slightly—from quantum dynamics. Although it is hard to know just how much credence to give this line of thought, it does add motivation for a stronger and more comprehensive programme of quantum experiments involving quantum observers.

I give a brief introduction to how Feynman diagrams are used. I review arguments to the effect that they are only used as calculation tools and should not be interpreted as representations of physical processes. Against these arguments, I propose to regard Feynman diagrams as visual models that explain, in some respects, how elementary particles interact.

Recently among analytic political philosophers there has been a considerable revival of interest in the normative evaluation of the market and of economic processes more generally. While not rejecting markets in toto , philosophers such as Elizabeth Anderson and Amartya Sen have raised questions about the proper range of the market, explored the role of normative considerations in economic decision-making and raised doubts about the view that normative constraints are never legitimately placed on economic activity. In this article I experience (...) the relevance to such explorations of the economic casuistry of the medieval schoolmen. Key Words: Just Price • medieval philosophy • usury • distributive justice • Aquinas. (shrink)

Contributing to renewed scholarly interest in R. D. Laing and his circle, and in the radical therapeutic community of Kingsley Hall, London, this article offers the first article-length reading of Mary Barnes’ and Joseph Berke’s Mary Barnes: Two Accounts of a Journey through Madness. This text offers views of anti-psychiatry ‘on the ground’ that critique the 1960s utopianism of Laing’s championing of madness as a metanoic, quasi-psychedelic voyage. Barnes’ story, too, reveals tensions within the anti-psychiatric movement. Moving beyond existing criticism (...) of the text, Barnes, it is argued here, emerges as far more than an exemplary patient, victim or anti-psychiatric puppet. Particular attention is paid in this reading of Two Accounts to the following: the ways in which the spiritually inclined Barnes and the psychoanalytic Berke differ in this dual narrative text; the ways in which each differs from Laing; the metaphor of the journey; and the setting of Barnes’ story in the often conflicted, experimental household of Kingsley Hall. (shrink)

The philosophy of cognitive paleoanthropology involves three related tasks: (1) asking what inferences might be drawn from the paleontological and archaeological records to past cognition, behavior and culture; (2) constructing synthetic accounts of the evolution of distinctive hominin capacities; (3) exploring how results from cognitive paleoanthropology might inform philosophy. We introduce some distinctive cognitive paleoanthropological inferences and discuss their epistemic standing, before considering how attention to the material records and the practice of paleoanthropology can inform and transform philosophical approaches.

Kant identifies what are in fact Free Riders as the most noxious species of polemicists. Kant thinks polemic reduces the stature and authority of reason to a method of squabbling that destabilizes social equilibrium and portends disintegration into the Hobessian state of nature. In the first Critique, Kant proposes two textually related solutions to the Free Rider problem.

Volume 19, Issue 9, September 2019, Page 52-54.

From a behaviorist perspective, the desire to upload “minds” is already being realized on a mass, hyper-industrial scale thanks to the convergence of cognitive computing and Big Data. The accusation is that the “mind” is not an entity that exists intracranially. Instead, it is conceived as a process of individuation, which occurs in different modes and numbers. Some narratives of mind-uploading and technics in popular culture are explored: Transcendence (2014, dir. Wally Pfister) and Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. The discussed (...) issues consider Bernard Stiegler’s phenomenological notion of originary default and Thierry Bardini’s analysis of junk. Several questions are raised regarding miscalculations, accidents, in addition to Nicolas Agar’s discussion on the end of humanity, and Daniel Dennett’s Multiple Drafts theory within the context of exteriorization, which is considered as constitutive of interiority. (shrink)

In this two-part article, I propose a new materialist understanding of behavior. The term “mattering” in the title refers to sense-making behavior that matters, that is, to significant habits and materialized behaviors. By significant habits I mean protocols, practices and routines that generate ways of reading material signs and fixed accounts of movement. I advance a notion of behaving that stresses its materiality and sensory shaping, and I provide select examples from music. I note that current definitions of behavior do (...) not capture its material dimension. This is because behavioral science has mostly viewed matter as passive, and not as an active agency. Such an approach has metaphysically framed behavior as a phenomenon of presence that is external from its environment. The approach of behavioral science to matter where there are fixed borders between the internal and external is lacking, since it does not account for agential cuts as conceptualized by Karen Barad. Instead, I consider behavior performatively; as an ongoing iterative practice and as integral to the growth of immanently self-caused matter that spawns metastable relational formations that produce different possibilities for successive formations. In this regard, behavior matters, and matter behaves. One key aspect of my article advances Bernard Stiegler as a critical new materialist thinker. This advancement concerns the technical doings of artworks, which include the material activity that is generative of sensitivity: feelings and beliefs associated with a sense or meaning. I outline an example of the materiality of habits as constitutive of music. After that, I coin the transformative doings of matter on the artist as a “caripulation,” which is a desired movement or motion that transforms the mover and the moved. Finally, I raise “pharmacological” considerations in terms of the Stieglerian aspects of organic and inorganic organized matter. (shrink)

Applying Aesthetics to Everyday Life surveys current debates in the field of everyday aesthetics, examining its history, methodology and intersections with cognate research areas. Lisa Giombini and Adrián Kvokacka bring together an international team of renowned scholars who are shaping the present and future of the discipline. They demonstrate how the historical origins of everyday aesthetics emerges across the history of Western aesthetic thought, from Renaissance thinkers to the modern German philosophers Baumgarten, Kant and Heidegger. Chapters shed light on the (...) field's methodological underpinnings, tracing its theoretical foundations back to epistemology and ethics and assess the potential of everyday aesthetics as a theoretical tool. They reveal its interdisciplinary nature and how it assists various fields of inquiry, including environmental and urban aesthetics, conservation ethics and the philosophy of art. Through fresh explorations of its origins, background and contemporary developments, this collection advances a new definition of everyday aesthetics and provides a cutting edge reflection on the world we inhabit today. (shrink)

An important question in the philosophy of psychiatry is: what is the proper method of psychiatric diagnostic reasoning? Let us call this the Methodological Question. In this paper, I criticize the answer that proponents of phenomenological psychiatry have given to this question and present an alternative. I argue that their answer fails to meet several adequacy conditions for a theory of psychiatric diagnostic reasoning. I then show how my own answer to the Methodological Question – the Model-Based Account of diagnostic (...) reasoning – meets these adequacy conditions. I conclude that the Model-Based Account of diagnostic reasoning is preferable to the Phenomenological Account. (shrink)

This article, through a case study of the Royal Dublin Society (RDS), traces the reception, experimentation with, and uses of radium in early twentieth-century Ireland. Throughout the nineteenth century there was increasing state intervention in the provision of scientific and technical education in Ireland. This culminated in the loss of the RDS's traditional role in this area. The article demonstrates that the RDS was forced to re-envisage its role as a scientific institution by actively seeking to support experimental research. Using (...) radium as a case study, the article argues for the success of this tactic. It demonstrates that radium played a central role within the RDS as a nexus for the maintenance of an experimental and philanthropic culture that permeated much of the society's scientific output in this period. In doing this it highlights the importance of sociability in the promotion of science in Ireland in the early twentieth century. In addition, it explores the role of the RDS as an arbiter of scientific authority. (shrink)

The function of groups as information processors is increasingly being recognised in a number of theories of group cognition. A theme of many of these is an emphasis on sharing cognition. This paper extends current conceptualisations of groups by critiquing the focus on shared cognition and emphasising the distribution of cognition in groups. In particular, it develops an account of the distribution of one cognitive construct, mental models. Mental models have been chosen as a focus because they are used in (...) a number of theories of high level cognition from different areas of research such as cognitive science and human factors and so the implication of this development is wide reaching. This paper reviews the unconnected literatures on distributed cognition and mental models and integrates them in order to extend the theory of mental models to distributed cognitive systems such as groups. The distributed cognition literature is reviewed and the importance of considering the group as single cognitive system is adopted. A range of mental model theories are reviewed leading to the conclusion that they all have, in some form, the central feature of a mapping onto the cognitive system. Combining these two ideas, it is proposed that the model can be a mapping onto the whole group, if the information is distributed appropriately and the connections between parts of the model maintained through communication. This cognitive construct is referred to as a distributed mental model. Implications and applications of this theory are discussed. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the Commodification Objection, locates a phenomenon of real moral significance. In defending the Commodification Objection, I review three common criticisms of it, which claim firstly, that commodification doesn’t always lead to instrumentalization; secondly, that commodification isn’t the only route to such an outcome; and finally, that the Commodification Objection applies only to persons, and human organs are not persons. In response, I conclude that moral significance does not require that an undesirable outcome be a (...) necessary consequence of the phenomenon under examination; the relative likelihood of an undesirable mode of regard arising provides a morally-relevant distinguishing marker for assessing the comparative moral status of social institutions and arrangements; and sales in blood products are sufficiently distinct from sales of everyday artefacts and sufficiently close to personhood to provide genuine grounds for concern. Accordingly, criticisms of the Commodification Objection do not provide grounds for rejecting the claim that human organ sales in general and compensation for blood plasma donation in particular can have morally pernicious ‘commodificatory effects’ upon our attitudes, for what human organ sales provide is a distinctive ethical hazard. (shrink)

Socialists and defenders of laissez-faire share the view that in the market agents pursue their self-interest, not the good of others. On this basis, socialists reject the market as an arena of immorality, while laissez-faire theorists attempt to defuse the charge by relying on the providential consequences of the "invisible hand," However, both stances presuppose a view of morality that too sharply separates self-interest and altruism. Some try to separate the economic arui morality into discrete spheres. In contrast, a compatibilist (...) account shows the ways a concern for personal profit and a concern for others can come together. Such a motivationalist approach allows one to re-conceive the "invisible hand." It is no longer a serendipitous justification of the merely self-interested, but an invitation to think of the various mixtures of altruism and self-interest required to produce those results that may commend the market. (shrink)

In debates over the legitimacy of markets for live human organs, much hinges on the moral standing of desperate exchanges. Can people in desperate circumstances genuinely choose to sell their organs? Alternatively if they do choose to sell, then surely is it their choice? While sales are banned in most of the Western world due to fears that the poor will be exploited, advocates of these markets find such prohibition unconscionably paternalistic; and from the standpoint of contemporary liberal theory, paternalism (...) is anathema. Is it possible to provide grounds for blocking such desperate exchanges which are not at the same time paternalistic?In ‘Imposing Options on People in Poverty: the Harm of a Live Donor Organ Market', Simon Rippon argues that some options in the market do in fact harm. According to Rippon, if we focus on possible negative consequences of increasing an agent's options, one can develop an argument against human organ markets which is not paternalistic or focused on the idea of exploitation. Whether his account is, as stated, non-paternalistic is an open question, but his analysis of the implications of increased commercial options provides an illuminating and original critique of the human organ markets.Rippon labels his opponents' view the ‘Laissez-choisir Argument’ . According to LC, blocking exchanges …. (shrink)